Donald Trump is now in a bit of no man’s land, as far as social media goes, and he’s looking to find a route home.
The former President found himself banned from major social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook in the wake of the Capitol riot of January 6th, 2021. It took Elon Musk buying Twitter to see Trump reinstated there, but The Don remains unable to utilize Facebook.
This week, his team took action to remedy that.
With access to his Twitter account back, Trump’s campaign is formally petitioning Facebook’s parent company to unblock his account there after it was locked in response to the U.S. Capitol riot two years ago.
“We believe that the ban on President Trump’s account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse,” Trump’s campaign wrote in its letter to Meta on Tuesday, according to a copy reviewed by NBC News.
Trump’s campaign didn’t threaten a lawsuit, as some sources close to Trump thought he would. It instead talked about the importance of free speech and petitioned Meta for a “meeting to discuss President Trump’s prompt reinstatement to the platform.”
It appeared as though his return was a possibility.
A Meta spokesperson declined to comment about Trump beyond saying the company “will announce a decision in the coming weeks in line with the process we laid out.”
An anonymous GOP insider has suggested that Trump has been considering coming back to Twitter now that his account had been unlocked, but the move could jeopardize the profitability of Truth Social – the platform that Trump himself created.
